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United States Patent |
5,699,547
|
Sato
,   et al.
|
December 16, 1997
|
Information retrieval system with serial access data storage and random
access data retrieval
Abstract
An information retrieval system in which information is stored in digital
form in a serial access device such as a digital VCR, the information
being organized as a library of successive albums, each album having
successive tracks of individually identifiable items of information, such
as audio performances, subjects or events. A random access device, such as
a compact disc player or magnetic hard disc drive, has stored therein a
portion of a preselected track of each album and a brief introductory
portion of each of the remaining tracks in each album. Both devices are
coupled to a common data bus and are controlled by a programmable
processor so that during search intervals of the serial access device to
access a selected album or track read-out thereof is initiated by the
random access device. When the serial access device is ready to access
selected track or album, read-out is switched over thereto. In this way
the required storage capacity of the random access device is minimized
while still providing random access to any album and to any track in an
already designated album.
Inventors:
|
Sato; Takashi (Scarborough, NY);
Basile; Carlo (Ossining, NY)
|
Assignee:
|
Philips Electronics North America Corporation (New York, NY)
|
Appl. No.:
|
521191 |
Filed:
|
August 30, 1995 |
Current U.S. Class: |
710/52; 369/14; 369/15; 711/111; 711/113; 711/154 |
Intern'l Class: |
G06F 013/00 |
Field of Search: |
395/438,440,481,872
369/14,15
|
References Cited
U.S. Patent Documents
4508001 | Apr., 1985 | Suzuki | 84/1.
|
5305155 | Apr., 1994 | Akagiri et al. | 360/32.
|
Foreign Patent Documents |
WO9215087 | Feb., 1992 | EP.
| |
2204180 | Apr., 1988 | GB.
| |
9215087 | Sep., 1992 | WO.
| |
Primary Examiner: Swann; Tod R.
Assistant Examiner: Tran; Denise
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Eason; Leroy
Claims
What is claimed is:
1. An information retrieval system comprising:
a serial access device recorder for sequentially storing on a recording
tape thereof a library of albums of data tracks, each track including data
corresponding to an identifiable item of information, any of the stored
data being serially accessible by translation of said tape until a pickup
head of said device is positioned at a storage address of the relevant
data thereon; said device having a maximum access time to any storage
address on said tape which is less than the play time of any of said
tracks when the data thereon is played at a normal data reproduction rate;
a random access device for providing random access to addressable data
storage locations therein; said data storage locations being for storing
(i) a copy of the data in at least an introductory portion of a preselected
track of each of said albums, said portion for any given album being
sufficient so that the play time thereof at said normal reproduction rate
is at least equal to the access time of the serial access device to access
said preselected track of said given album; and
(ii) a copy of the data in a more brief introductory portion of each of the
non-preselected tracks of each of said albums, said portion of any given
non-preselected track of any album being sufficient so that the play time
thereof at said normal reproduction rate is at least equal to the access
time of the serial access device from the preselected track of said album
to said given non-preselected track thereof;
a data bus coupled in common to each of said devices to receive data
read-out therefrom;
data reproduction means coupled to said data bus to receive data therefrom
and reproduce said data at said normal reproduction rate and in a form
representative of the information corresponding thereto; and
a data processor also coupled to said data bus for controlling said devices
in conformity with commands supplied to said data processor by a user,
said commands signifying albums and tracks stored in the serial access
device which are to be reproduced; said data processor controlling said
devices so that data is read-out to said data bus from the random access
device to maintain continuous reproduction of data during search intervals
of the serial access recorder to access a specified album or a specified
track of a previously specified album.
2. An information retrieval system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said date
processor controls read-out of data from each of said devices to said data
bus so that
(i) in response to a command designating an album the random access device
reads-out to said data bus the data stored therein from a portion of a
preselected track of said album, read-out to said data bus being switched
over to said serial access device when the tape thereof has been
translated into position for continued uninterrupted read-out of the data
in the remaining portion of said preselected track of said album; read-out
of the remaining tracks in said album then being continued by said serial
access device; and
(ii) in response to a command designating a non-preselected track of a
previously designated album to which the tape of said serial access device
has already been positioned, the random access device reads-out to said
data bus the data stored therein of a portion of said non-preselected
track; read-out to said data bus being switched over to said serial access
device when the tape thereof has reached position for continued
uninterrupted read-out of the data in the remaining portion of said
non-preselected track.
3. An information retrieval system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said data
reproduction means comprises a buffer memory for storing data received
from said data bus and controlled by said processor to read-out the stored
data at said normal reproduction rate thereof; the processor controlling
read-out of data from both said devices so as to maintain said buffer
memory at a filling level within a predetermined range during search
intervals of said serial access device to a specified album or to a
specified track of a previously specified album.
4. An information retrieval system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the
serial access device has a higher search speed for accessing a different
album and a lower search speed for accessing a different track within a
given album; the access time to a predetermined track of any album being
determined by said higher search speed and the access time to a
non-preselected track of an album being determined by said lower search
speed.
5. An information retrieval system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the data
in each data track corresponds to audio information and the normal
reproduction rate thereof is an audio data rate.
6. An information retrieval system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the data
read/write rate of the serial access device exceeds by at least an order
of magnitude the normal reproduction rate of the data stored therein.
7. An information retrieval system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the
serial access device is a digital video cassette recorder having a data
read/write rate of the order of 100 times the normal reproduction rate of
the data stored therein.
8. An information retrieval system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the
random access device is either a compact disc player or a magnetic hard
disc drive.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of information storage and retrieval,
and more particularly to an information retrieval system wherein
information is stored in digital form in a serial access device such as a
magnetic or optical tape recorder, and specified portions thereof can be
retrieved by random access without having to await traversal of
intervening portions of the recorded data.
Such a system can, for example, provide real time random access to a
specified track in a comprehensive library of albums of data tracks which
represent respective audio performances or other identifiable items of
information.
2. Description of the Related Art
A serial access data storage device such as a digital audio tape recorder
operates at the normal audio data reproduction rate of 256 Kbps (kilobits
per second). The play time for an album of 15 tracks, each track being an
individual selection, is therefore 54 minutes. For a comprehensive library
of, for example, 400 albums, the total play time would be 360 hours. Even
though the search speed of such a recorder is typically 200 times the play
speed, it could take almost 2 hours to access a specified track in a
specified album of such a library.
This long retrieval time can be alleviated by employing a storage device
which operates at much higher than the audio data rate, such as a consumer
digital video cassette recorder or VCR. Such a recorder has a playback
rate of about 100 times the audio data rate, or 25 Mbps, and the search
speed is about 200 times the playback rate. The storage capacity for 400
albums would be 41.5 Gbytes, and the maximum access time, depending on the
location to be addressed, ranges between 33.2-66.4 seconds. In such a
recorder the recorded data is encoded for purposes of error correction and
data compression, and so it would be used with an intermediate buffer
memory to convert from the recorder data rate to the audio data rate and a
decoder to decode the encoded data and recover the original audio data.
The maximum access time of about 1 minute is, of course, a major
improvement over the nearly 2 hour maximum access time of an audio tape
recorder, but is still too slow to be convenient for most users.
There are, of course, random access storage devices, for example compact
disc players and magnetic hard disc drives as used in personal computers,
which provide virtually immediate access to data at any storage address
therein. However, the storage capacity of a typical magnetic hard disc is
only about 1 Gbyte, far short of the over 40 Gbytes required for a
comprehensive library of 400 albums as proposed.
Obviously, it would be of significant advantage if a serial storage device
of high capacity, such as a digital VCR, could be provided with random
access capability.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention provides an information retrieval system which includes a
high capacity serial access device, such as a digital VCR, and a
relatively lower capacity random access device, such as a compact disc
player or magnetic hard disc drive. Read-out from both devices is
coordinated by a programmable processor, the data so read being provided
over a common bus to a buffer memory for data rate conversion. A complete
library of albums, each including a plurality of data tracks, is stored in
the serial access device. In addition, stored in the random access device
is a portion of one preselected track from each album, as well as a brief
introductory interval of each of the remaining tracks in each album, so
that all tracks of all albums are represented but not actually stored in
the random access recorder. For a 400 album library as suggested above,
there will be 660 Mbytes of data from preselected tracks and 134 Mbytes of
data from non-preselected tracks, for a total of 794 Mbytes. This is well
within the typical 1 Gbyte capacity of a magnetic hard disc drive.
When a user indicates an album selection to the processor, the processor
issues a command to both devices to access such album. Read-out by the
random access device of the stored portion of the preselected track of the
relevant album is initiated immediately, and before reproduction of that
data (at the audio rate) has been completed, the serial access device will
have reached the location therein of data from the remaining portion of
the preselected track of the relevant album. The processor then switches
access to the common bus over to the serial access device and read-out is
continued therefrom. If the user indicates a track other than the
preselected track in a previously designated album, the serial access
device being already positioned at such album, the processor controls the
random access recorder to read-out the brief introductory interval stored
therein of the addressed track in such album. During reproduction thereof
(again at the audio rate) the serial access device will have reached the
storage location therein of the addressed track. That is detected by the
processor, since both devices are then at corresponding track addresses,
and the processor then switches access to the common bus over to the
serial access device and read-out is continued therefrom. The result is
that, as perceived by the user, the serial access device apparently
provides random access availability because there is no delay in
reproduction of his selection.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The invention will be described in more detail with reference to preferred
embodiments thereof and the accompanying drawings, wherein:
FIG. 1 conceptually shows storage of a library of albums of tracks in a
serial access device;
FIG. 2 conceptually shows storage of certain portions of the library in
FIG. 1 in a random access device so as to provide random access
availability to albums and tracks of said library;
FIG. 3 shows an adaptive data allocation method of minimizing the requisite
storage capacity of the random access device in order to enable random
access availability to a given size library stored in a serial access
device; and
FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an information retrieval system in accordance
with the invention.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
Referring to FIG. 1, this conceptually shows storage in a serial access
high speed device, such as a digital video cassette recorder (VCR), of a
library of albums each of which includes a number of tracks, a track being
an identifiable selection such as, for example, a particular audio
performance, event, or subject. For simplicity of illustration only 10
albums are shown, each having 8 tracks, but the arrangement is the same
for a larger library. The length of each track corresponds to the amount
of recorded digital information, or data therein. Assuming the information
to be audio, the track length will be proportional to the play time of the
data thereon at the normal audio data rate of 256 Kbps. That will
typically be 3.6 minutes for one selection of a typical compact disc
recording. The recorder is bidirectional, and the pickup head may be
situated anywhere on the recording medium, e.g. a magnetic or optical
tape, when a command is issued for the pickup head to access a specified
album and/or specified track. The recording medium will be hereinafter
referred to as a tape. The compilation of albums constituting the library
would typically be produced by recording on the tape digital data
corresponding to a collection of individual albums such as audio compact
discs or audio tapes.
The access time, or "worst case" search time, of the pickup head to a
specified data location on the tape ranges from a maximum for data located
at either end of the tape, since the pickup head could be at the opposite
end of the entire tape, to a minimum for data located at the center of the
tape, since the pickup head then cannot be more remote than half of the
entire tape. Using the example given above, of a library of 400 albums and
15 tracks per album, a consumer digital VCR which operates at 25 Mbps, and
recorded data which is audio information having a normal audio playback
rate of 256 Kbps, the relevant parameters of the serial access recorder
are then as shown in the following Table 1:
TABLE 1
______________________________________
SERIAL ACCESS (VCR) DEVICE
No. of Albums 400
Total Play Time (Audio
360 hours (54 mins) per album
Playback)
Required VCR capacity
41.5 Gbytes
Long distance search speed
200 .times. 25 Mbps = 5 Gbps
Album access time
33.2-66.4 sec. (depending on
album position on tape)
Short distance search speed
33 .times. 25 Mbps = 825 Mbps
Track access time in pre-
0.5-1 sec. (depends on track
selected album location in album)
______________________________________
It is seen that the access time (worst case search time) to a specified
album is between about one-half and one minute, and is between one-half
and 1 second to a specified track in a preselected album. The maximum
access time to an album is derived as follows:
41.5 Gbytes.times.8 bits/byte.div.5 Gbps=66.4 secs.
That would be for an album at either end of the tape. The minimum album
access time would be for an album at the center of the tape, and so is
half the maximum or 33.2 seconds.
The maximum access time for a track within a preselected album is derived
as follows:
256 Kbps.times.60 sec/min.times.54 min/album=829 Mbits/album
829 Mbits.div.825 Mbps=1 sec.
That would be for a track at either end of the preselected album. For a
track at the center of such album, the access time would be half of that
value, or 0.5 sec.
It will be noted that the audio play time of a track is 3.6 minutes, which
exceeds the maximum access time of 66.4 seconds to any album. This is
significant because, as will be described below, it is thereby possible to
complete access to an album by the serial recorder within the play time of
a portion of a preselected track in such album played at the normal audio
data rate.
FIG. 2 illustrates how, by using a random access device such as, for
example, a compact disc player or magnetic hard disc drive, to supplement
the serial access device, it is possible by storing only a limited amount
of data in the random access device to achieve apparent continuous
read-out of data stored in the serial access device. That is, in
accordance with the invention, the random access device only need store
enough data so that the play time of a stored portion of a data track at
the normal reproduction rate will at least equal the access time of the
serial access device to the remaining portion of such track. Once that
condition has been reached, read-out can be continued from the serial
access device. Seamless transition is achieved by assembling all the data
in a buffer memory which serves to convert the data therein to the normal
reproduction rate, e.g. the audio rate of 256 Kbps.
As seen in FIG. 2, an introductory portion of one preselected track from
each album is stored in the random access device. This will usually be the
first of such tracks since that simplifies operation, but any track could
be preselected in each album. The portion so stored is much less than the
complete track, since as noted above the maximum access time of the serial
access device to any album is 66.4 secs., as compared with a play time of
3.6 minutes for the complete track. The random access device thus provides
virtually immediate random access to the preselected track of any of the
albums stored in the serial access device. Thus, instead of having to
store all tracks in their entirety as shown in FIG. 1, portions of only
certain of such complete tracks, one from each album, are stored in FIG.
2. During reproduction at the normal reproduction rate of data from the
portion of a preselected track stored as shown in FIG. 2 from any
particular album, the serial access device will have had time to access
and continue with read-out of the remaining portion of such track of such
album, and further continues with read-out of the remaining tracks of that
album.
FIG. 2 also shows storage in the random access device of an even more brief
introductory portion of each of the non-preselected tracks in each album,
the duration thereof corresponding to the short distance maximum access
time of the serial access device from any track in such album to any other
track in the same album. As shown in Table 1, the maximum access time
within an album is 1 second. Therefore, storing a portion corresponding to
1 second play time (at the audio rate) of each non-preselected track in
each album would be sufficient to enable the serial access device to
access any non-preselected track of an album after having already been
positioned for read-out from such album.
As seen in Table 1, the access time both for a particular album and for a
particular track varies from a maximum for data located at either end of
the entire tape and at either end of each album, to a minimum for data
located at the center of the tape and at the center of each album. The
minimum access time is half the maximum access time. It is therefore
possible, instead of recording the same portions of the tracks in each
album, to use an adaptive allocation of the amount of data stored in the
random access device depending on the location of the relevant album and
track on the tape of the serial access device. Such an adaptive allocation
is shown in FIG. 3, wherein, supposing the first track of each album as
the preselected track to be stored, approximately equal portions of the
preselected tracks of the first and last albums are stored, only half as
much of the preselected track of the album at the center of the tape is
stored, and for intermediate albums proportionate fractions of the
preselected tracks therein are stored. A similar adaptive allocation is
used for the non-preselected tracks in each album. Thus, in each album,
the stored portions of the first and last of the non-preselected tracks
are equal and correspond to the maximum access time within an album of the
VCR as described above. The stored portion of the center track is half
that of the first and last non-preselected tracks. For intermediate tracks
proportionate fractions thereof are stored. Thus, the amount of data
required to be stored in the random access device is reduced to the
minimum necessary in order to correspond with the access times of the VCR
for read-out of a specified album or to a specified track in a previously
designated album.
The following Table 2 summarizes the relevant parameters of a random access
device as described, such as a hard magnetic disc (MD) drive, for use with
a serial access VCR having the parameters shown in Table 1. The access
times of the VCR, as shown in Table 1, are repeated here because they are
determinative of the amount of data required to be stored in the random
access recorder. All of the other parameters applicable to Table 1, i.e.,
an audio data rate of 256 Kbps, a VCR data rate of 25 Mbps, and 400 albums
of 15 tracks each, are also applicable in Table 2.
TABLE 2
______________________________________
RANDOM ACCESS (MD) DEVICE
Album access time of VCR
33.2-66.4 sec.
Data on MD from a pre-
1.1-2.2 Mbytes/album (depends on
selected track in an
album on tape)
album
Total data on MD (pre-
660 Mbytes
selected tracks)
Track access time of VCR
0.5-1 secs. (depends on data
within an album location in album)
Data on MD from non-
336 Kbytes/album
preselected tracks/album
Total data on MD (non-
134 Mbytes
preselected tracks)
MD memory capacity
660 + 134 = 794 Mbytes
______________________________________
These entries are explained as follows. An interval of 33.2 sec.
corresponds at the normal audio data rate to
33.2 sec..times.256 Kbps.times.1/8 bytes/bit=1.03.apprxeq.1.1 Mbytes
The range of 1.1-2.2 Mbytes/album is an average of 1.65 Mbytes/album for
all 400 albums, and so the data from non-preselected tracks is
1.65.times.400=660 Mbytes.
The range of 0.5-1 secs. track access time averages to 0.75 secs. for all
14 non-preselected tracks in each album. The required data from such
tracks on the FED is therefore
0.75.times.14.times.256 Kbps.times.1/8 bytes/bit=336 Kbytes/album
For 400 hundred albums, the non-preselected track data is therefore
400.times.336=134 Mbytes. Combining that with the 660 Mbytes required for
the preselected track data, the necessary capacity of the magnetic disc
recorder is 660+134=794 Mbytes. That is well within the one Gbyte capacity
of inexpensive hard magnetic disc drives.
FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an information retrieval system in accordance
with the invention for operation as described above. The serial access
device 1 is a digital VCR having the characteristics shown in Table 1,
operating at 25 Mbps. A library of audio or other information to be
stored, in the form of successive albums each containing a plurality of
tracks, is recorded in digital form on the VCR tape. The normal
reproduction rate of the stored information is substantially slower than
the operating rate of the VCR. For audio information the audio
reproduction rate is 256 Kbps.
The VCR 1 and a random access device 2, for example a magnetic hard disc
drive (MD) as suggested above, are both coupled to a data bus 3 to which
is also coupled a programmable data processor which coordinates operation
of both storage devices and access thereof to the data bus at appropriate
intervals in order to provide data for continuous reproduction. The data
provided to the bus is conveyed thereby to a digital first-in-first-out or
FIFO memory 5, which is controlled by processor 3 to provide output of
data at the desired reproduction rate, in the case of audio data 256 Kbps.
Memory 5 supplies the data at the audio rate to a decoder 6 for decoding
and D/A conversion. The resultant signal is supplied to a reproduction
facility, shown in this case as a pair of stereo loud speakers.
Initially the storage devices are controlled by processor 3 to record in
the MD device 2 the necessary portions of data tracks of the albums
already recorded in the VCR 1, so that the stored data in MD device 2 will
be sufficient for CPU 4 to maintain memory 4 at a filling level which
assures a continuing flow of data at the audio rate to decoder 5 during
intervals when VCR 1 is still searching to access a designated album or
track. From the description given above it will now be apparent how that
is achieved. An introductory portion of a selected track, preferably the
first, of the first album in VCR 1 is also recorded in MD device 2. A
lesser introductory portion of each succeeding track in the first album in
VCR 1 is then also successively recorded in MD device 2, such portion
linearly decreasing from the second track to the central track so that the
duration of the recorded portion of the central track is approximately
half that of the second track, and then linearly increasing for succeeding
tracks so that the duration of the stored portion of the last track is the
same is that of the second track. This procedure is then repeated for the
second and succeeding albums, with similar provision for adaptive
allocation of the stored portion of the preselected track of each album.
That is, the stored portion of preselected tracks in albums succeeding the
first album linearly decreases up to the predetermined track of the album
at the center of the library, for which the stored portion of the
predetermined track thereof is approximately half that of the
predetermined track in the first album. For albums succeeding the central
album this procedure is reversed, the stored portions of the predetermined
tracks of the succeeding albums linearly increasing until for the last
album the stored portion of the predetermined track thereof is
approximately the same as for the first album.
It shall be noted that, although coding is not a novel feature of the
present invention, the data recorded in the VCR 1 may not be the original
audio data to be reproduced but my have been encoded to provide for
compression and error correction.
After the necessary data has thus been recorded in the random access MD
device, the system is ready for operation as a random access library. It
should be understood that random access is provided to any album and also
to any track in an already designated album, but not to any track of any
newly designated album. This is dealt with further below. Using the
processor 4 the user specifies a particular album or albums and tracks
thereon to be played. The processor controls the VCR 1, via a conventional
selection unit thereof, to commence search to access the indicated
choices, and simultaneously switches access to the data bus 3 to MD device
2 so that playback is commenced therefrom in accordance with the first of
such choices; e.g., a chosen album. It is assumed that the user has
already made a designation of a track, such as the first track, in each
album as the preselected track thereof. The MD device 2 is controlled by
processor 4 to read-out via bus 3 to buffer memory 5 the stored data
corresponding to a portion of the first track in the chosen album, and
such data is then read-out from memory 5 to decoder 6 at the normal audio
rate, subjected thereby to decoding and D/A conversion, and the resulting
signal is supplied to the loudspeakers. While that is occurring, the VCR 1
accesses the chosen album and the preselected track therein. The track
address of the data at the pickup head of VCR 1 is monitored by processor
4, which also monitors the address in MD device 2 of data supplied thereby
to buffer memory 5. When such addresses correspond to the same data, that
means that the pickup head of VCR 1 is in position to continue read-out of
a track from where MD device 2 has just left off. The processor 4 then
switches access to data bus 3 over to the VCR 1, and playback of the
preselected track of the chosen album is continued with data supplied from
that recorder.
In the event the user has chosen a particular track of a particular album
other than the preselected track thereof, there are two alternative
procedures available. The first alternative is to begin with playback of
the preselected track of such album, followed without any interruption by
playback of the chosen track in that album. This proceeds substantially as
described above, except that after completion of read-out of the
preselected track of such album the processor 4 controls MD device 2 to
read-out the stored introductory portion of the chosen track in such
album. Once the VCR 1 is ready to access the remainder of such track the
processor 4 switches access to data bus 3 over to VCR 1 and read-out of
the chosen track is continued therefrom. The second alternative, which the
user can signify to processor 4, is to wait out the access time (between
1/2 and 1 minute, see Table 2) for VCR 1 to reach the album which contains
the chosen track. In that event the processor does not switch access to
the data bus to MD device 2 until that occurs, after which MD device 2 is
given access to data bus 3 to read-out the portion of the chosen track
stored therein. By then VCR 1 will be in position to access that track and
operation resumes as described above for the first alternative.
Although the invention has been described with reference to certain
preferred embodiments thereof, it will be apparent to those skilled in the
art that various modifications and adaptations thereof can be made without
departing from the essential scope and teachings of the invention as set
forth in the ensuing claims.
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